The 'New' Melville

Revelations about author's personal life bring a re-evaluation

By Scott Heller

Vigorous men populate his fiction, but Herman Melville's home
life was dominated by poor health and writer's block. During the
agonizing periods when he struggled with the blank page, his wife
and daughters diligently helped to copy and correct his
manuscripts.

Melville was a tyrant at home, so much so that in 1867, family
friends concocted a plan to spirit away his wife, Elizabeth Shaw
Melville, and pretend she was kidnaped.